Dimitri's Low Self-Esteem in The Lady with the Dog

DimitriDimitrichGomov, the main character in “The Lady with the Toy Dog,” displays a puzzling low self-esteem as a core issue through avoidance, such as avoiding his wife who scares him or men who make him feel uneasy, and projection, including seeing women as inferior beings, throughout the short story, The most efficient and all-inclusive method to look intoGomov’s low self-esteem, avoidance, and projection is to use a combination of psychoanalytic theory and formalism Psychoanalysis will come into play with specific terms such as “core issue,”“low self- esteem,” “defenses, avoidance,” and “projection,” while analyzing the character‘s actions.

A “core issue” is a psychological damage that one has, which can include “low self-esteem,” in order for people to live with such issues, some use “defenses,” which may include “avoidance,” the act of avoiding the source of the problem or anything that reminds us of the issue, and “projection,” which is when we project what we feel or believe onto someone else.

Meanwhile, the idea behind formalism will be a crucial component of the analysis, for the argument will be based on evidence found in the text and will look at the imagery, a description through words to create a mental picture within the reader’s head, and symbolism, a word or phrase that has a literal and a figurative meaning The textual basis for the study will come from two key moments: the description of his thoughts regarding women and the moment when he and Anna are sitting on a bench in Oreanda.

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His point of View regarding his wife, women, and the way he acts around men uses descriptive imagery to show his projection and avoidance of his low self-esteem, while the moment in Oreanda uses imagery and symbolism to exhibit low self-esteem and his thoughts about himself By combining the two theories, primarily by using psychoanalytic terms to analyze a character while making sure not to stray from the text, the analysis will be faithful to the story without having anything inferred without textual evidence to support iti.

The advantagesof using formalism include seeing what the text itself shows, adding details and citations, and looking into the imagery and symbolism showed through critical moments to support the analysis of Gornov, which fit together nicely with the benefits of using the psychoanalyst theory to incorporate low self-esteem as a core issue and to look into Gomov‘s actions and thoughts, The two methods will fit with one another to allow for a bigger picture to be seen by doing a Close reading of individualkey moments.